Abstract
What (infra)structures ? (2)
To understand the varied status of teachers, we need to look at the role of the state and cities in the organization of lectures, based on imperial legislation and, more specifically, the constitution of Theodosius II, which established the Capitoline Auditorium in Constantinople in 425 (CTh XIV, 9, 3). The same situation must have applied to Alexandria, with professors holding official professorships rubbing shoulders in public buildings with private teachers who did not hesitate to invite their students. However, it is difficult to determine the status of the teachers we know from literary sources.
In any case, we have a better idea of the infrastructure of this higher education thanks to the twenty or so lecturetheatres(auditoria), dating from the end of the5th or the first half of the 6th century, discovered at Kôm el-Dikka (in the heart of Alexandria).
What were the subjects in which Alexandria of Late Antiquity distinguished itself ? Despite the variety of answers given by ancient authors, three disciplines come up most frequently : rhetoric (and grammar, which is linked to it), philosophy and medicine (with the typically Alexandrian figure of the iatrosophist, lit. " doctor-sophist ", which testifies to the community of methods existing in the three major disciplines taught in Alexandria). The criticisms that some modern authors have levelled at the importance of the former in Alexandria provide an opportunity to reassess the importance of Alexandrian rhetorical teaching in the eyes of the Ancients.
As for the discipline taught by Horapollon, sources diverge : he is presented either as a grammatikos " grammairien " (Zechariah), or as a philosophos " philosophe " (the anthology of Dioscorus, Stephen of Byzantium, perhaps Damascius). Examination of the use of the latter term suggests a solution : while it's not impossible that he taught both disciplines simultaneously or successively, Horapollon would indeed have been a grammarian, and the term philosopher would have been used in the broad, non-technical sense not uncommon in this period.
Paganism and Christianity
With the rise of Christianity in the 4th century, our teachers' lectures were attended by an increasingly mixed audience, with the traditional pagan contingent rubbing shoulders with the ever-growing Christian contingent. Most of the time, religious opinions were left in the checkroom. But this was not always done in such an irenic way. Witness the scuffles between Christian and pagan students during our Horapollon lecture on the story of Zechariah. Horapollon himself belonged to a family that embodied the supreme resistance to Christianity.
Despite these episodes of confrontation, the promiscuity between pagans and Christians on the auditoria benches was rather peaceful and respectful of the other. This tolerance is perhaps one of the distinctive features of the lectures developed in Alexandria in late antiquity.
